Disambiguating Motherhood; Why it is earned.

When I googled the word Mother this evening I expected to find at least a couple of pages, of the over two thousand results that came up, dedicated to the time-honoured meaning that we might have all experienced. Guess I have really been believing that google knows everything. 

But, maybe because google had a mother someday the first two searches revealed a natural understanding of the term. The rest of the links in the first page are… (you guessed it …) Businesses, you will be surprised by the number of businesses that bear the name mother; restaurants, advertising agencies, magazines, fashion, graphic designs; all very successful. Well, as much as I would love to chew google out for giving such little space for unmistakably the most fertile expression ever a very large number of small businesses down to every township have an almost default prefix ‘Mama__’ so and so salon, beverages, pub, designs and my personal favorite Mama_Mboga.

I must say I’m quite surprised to realize that ‘mama’ is not underlined… since when did it become English!! So I google it, and what comes up? A movie! This google today is quite unpredictable, so I refine the search and now it’s brings up an even more unanticipated definition, simply put as “daimmmmm! She is one hot mama!!” now I can’t tell if it’s English or something… some idiot (a compliment) in a WhatsApp group am in would say #peace! (I’ve never really known the motivation behind such wanton misuse of the word)

So I go back and type some variation that google was so kind to hit at me in my first search; ‘mom’. Am hopeful this time, but the search engine relentlessly disappoints, the first link is a certain ‘Ministry of Manpower!’ then several several links to a TV serial fill up the first page. At this juncture I am confident that google is anything but a mother. It might be the mother of all web searches but it has the mindset of a medieval African father who only sees the amount of dowry and anticipates perpetual respect to accrue from in-laws rather than think of his daughters’ well-being and freedom of choice.

So I went all manual, picked up oxford dictionary which staunchly tells ‘a female parent of a child or animal’ echoing only the natural inherent sense. Still infatuated with the scroll fell of the web I check the words that follow. And she doesn’t disappoint, we have mother-country, motherhood, motherland, motherlode, mother-nature, mother-tongue and the main circuit board of each and every single electronic device – the Motherboard! All these very loaded terms whose chi is undeniably ubiquitous.

I’d call my dictionary motherly, you will agree with me it’s quite principled, unrelenting in presenting fact as it knows best and very consistent in its intentions. Whoever seeks its help will be served the exact information the former received. It has no bias and as you well know it doesn’t pop-up adverts to your face or redirect to a company’s website or a TV serial you should watch! Now that’s a mother: no hidden agenda’s no bias, stereotypes or favorites (But she will tell you what all these selfish terms mean)

The mother am not talking about is the modern-day female who prefers lady to woman and became the dictionary’s definition of mother in all other places than a matrimonial bed, or worse is still hoping the child remains innocent and never gives her the laborious task of manufacturing a father or even deciding herself who it really was! (Trust me, there are such). I find it hard, to really call ‘mother’ alumnus of what Mukere calls Modern dating school who smitten by the promise of ‘unlimited freedom’ drown into an avalanche of flings that end up in unsightly baby bums and a certified disenchanted future. 

Definitely it’s not that ‘lady’ who had the gall to contemplate abortion but couldn’t because she’d miss clubbing so much if it was to go wrong, or because her parents wouldn’t hear of it. Not to mention the growing number of extraterrestrial women who would without warning can chop off a man’s manhood if and when they think the burden of motherhood is too heavy

The motherlode of our very existence is lies in the presence of exceptional women who have mostly by design, but also by accident, perfected the art of mothering. Oxford says ‘the act of caring for and protecting children or other people' this we could say transcends both genders (funny). 

My mama mboga is one ideal make-up of a mother, she is a provider and goes lengths to make sure her family is fed. Despite the heavy responsibility she will treat her customers (mostly campus students and broke bachelors) with respect and care to the extent of extending credit to them even after enduring repetitive chopping of the Sukuma Wiki (the hardest and most monotonous Kitchen work I know). 

The other day as I ran back home from my new job; tarmacking, in the middle of a downpour I found her standing in the rain clad in a makeshift polythene raincoat, the run-off water  had long swept away the stone she sits on. She knew her customer’s weren’t home yet. The mboga was cut already so I bought my usual, she even offered to add a little.

I wanted to tell her to go home, that it wasn’t worth it if she got sick, but I ended up telling her that she should mind the cold. She did this not for herself, that’s who a mother is. she does cry sometimes, but she will dry her tear's so quickly before her children sees them; their pillar.

It’s a title, as such it is earned.